Sunday, February 26, 2012

“...Yossarian
was cold, too, and shivering uncontrollably. He felt goose pimples clacking all
over him as he gazed down despondently at the grim secret Snowden had spilled
all over the messy floor. It was easy to read the message in his entrails. Man
was matter, that was Snowden’s secret. Drop him out a window and he’ll fall.
Set fire to him and he’ll burn. Bury him and he’ll rot, like other kinds of
garbage. That was Snowden’s secret. Ripeness was all.”

—Joseph
Heller, “Catch 22”

Here’s what I know:

Sometime after midnight while we were on some bullshit
medical run, I heard dispatch tone out an engine for a single-vehicle traffic
collision with fire on a freeway onramp in our first-in. It would have been our
call, if we hadn’t already been on this band-aid run, so the other other unit
got it.

Maybe a half an hour later, after we were back in quarters
and trying to get back to sleep, we got toned out to the scene of the car fire.
They needed a truck company to extricate a body. Turns out it was a fatality
fire.

When we pulled up, there were half dozen CHP cruisers
blocking the intersection, and the county arson investigator’s unmarked
pick-up. Fifty feet up the now-closed ramp was the burned out shell of a
compact sedan. Highway patrol officers stood around indifferently, waiting.

Seems there were a lot of unanswered questions: What caused
this late-night single-car accident on a relatively remote onramp? Why did this
car that sustained seemingly minimal damage from collision show such heavy fire
damage? Although the engine compartment showed little signs of char, the
passenger space had clearly been fully engulfed—an unusual pattern. Was an
accelerant used? Was the victim murdered and his car then deliberately set on fire?

No one wanted to claim jurisdiction. Local PD dumped it off
on CHP and left the scene; CHP was now trying to pawn it off on our county
sheriffs. While unseen chief officers on the other end of crackling police
radios and cell phones dickered, we climbed off the rig and met up with our
arson investigator.

He explained that after the cops sorted out jurisdiction and
the corner’s van arrived, our crew would have to cut the car apart and get the
body out. So we ambled up the ramp to size up our task and peered inside the
blackened sheet metal.

I’ve seen my share of dead bodies—from infants to old
people—and even some burned ones. But this was different.

The driver’s seat was just a black wire frame now, but slumped
deep into this outline was a charcoal-colored heap; there were no discernable
body parts. No ghastly silhouette of a head, torso, and extremities. Instead,
just an ungathered mass, spilled out like some terrible secret.

In terms of extrication, it would be routine: Either spread
the door, or cut the A and B posts to flap back the roof. It would only take a
few minutes to give the coroner full access.

But it soon became clear that it was going to be a while
before decisions were made, so the arson investigator sent us back to our home
quarters. He’d call us back out when we were needed.

But he never did.

Later the next morning the intersection was clear.

Like so many calls I’ve been on these past 17 years, I never
learned what happened—either before or after the event

Sunday, February 12, 2012

"No
man is an Island, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of
the Continent, a part of the maine… any
mans death diminishes me, because I am involved
in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; It tolls for thee."

—John
Donne

The Grammys, The Oscars, The Emmys, The Tonys, People’s
Choice, Golden Globes, American Music Awards, BET, CMAs…

Celebrities certainly do like to celebrate themselves. Can
you think of any other occupation so preoccupied with itself? Can you imagine if
other professionals possessed the same level of self-congratulatory hubris?

“And now accepting the award for Best Junior Account
Executive…”

Cue adulatory applause.

Pop culture assures its celebrities that their lives are
extraordinary, special. And if their lives are so significant, so must be their
deaths.

Last night, someone texted me that Whitney Houston died. I
thought, “How much should I care?”

Now don’t get me wrong: I’m sure she was a beautiful person.
I assume that in this world she faced her share of challenges, took
satisfaction in her accomplishments, and was no stranger to personal tragedy
and loss. In other words, she was just like the rest of us. But having a three-octave
range is no more of an achievement than graduating vocational school. (Perhaps
Houston leveraged her considerable wealth and influence for charitable or
humanitarian causes, but its not mentioned in any of the late-breaking news
reports I’ve seen so far.)

Everyday, decent, hard-working, selfless people die
anonymous deaths—their passing barely noted by anyone save a few close family
members. My job has brought me into an uncomfortable proximity with this cold fact.

Poet John Donne once wrote eloquently of the immutable
connection we humans share, our interdependence upon each other. Everyone
matters. But Hollywood has subverted that noble truth: In today’s culture, no
one matters except the very beautiful and famous.

Tonight’s award program will feature an unabashed celebration
of Ms. Houston, I’m sure. Perhaps fans will hold a candlelight vigil, or place
teddy bears and roses on the sidewalk in front of the Beverly Hilton. But such outpouring
has always given me a certain existential dysphoria.

Friday, February 3, 2012

She was driving that little red hatchback to a routine
appointment when she started feeling dizzy, and pulled over. A few hours later
she was sitting upright in a hospital bed, having just learned that the
afternoon’s scans and tests revealed she had brain tumor.

Surgery, radiation, chemo. It did little to slow the inexorable
progression of a high-grade astrocytoma.

She had sent six kids through Catholic school. Her mothering
skills were a deft combination of pediatrician, short-order cook, janitor, cab
driver, party planner, and armchair psychiatrist. She wasn’t perfect, of course;
what mother is? But she had spent years wrestling with the demons of her own
past—an estranged father and overbearing mother—and struggling chronic,
debilitating health problems, all while raising six kids of her own. The life
had left her exhausted and understandably high-strung.

But now she had finally begun to relax. She took
satisfaction in watching an elder son marry, just as her youngest daughter was transitioning
into young adulthood. At last she could sit back and savor years of hard work
like a maturing fine wine.

Until that afternoon in December cut everything short.

Sixteen months later, I stood at her bedside in a nursing
home, clutching her frail hand. The hallways reeked of industrial-grade antiseptics,
bland institutional food, and stale urine. She held me with a vacant gaze—did
she still recognize her middle son?

Later that night, the ringing phone by my bedside startled
me from a dreamless sleep. A call that we had all come to expect, come to
accept.

Sometimes it's hard not to fixate on those days and nights.

But when the weather turns cool, and gray clouds blanket the winter sky…

I’m pulled back in time to that little home in a small town
in upstate New York…

…a warm amber glow emanates from the kitchen, the sounds of pots
and pans clattering, the sweet smell of supper made from scratch…